René Beltjens (Alter Domus): Create Value, or Lose Ground

Infrastructure, energy, front-office talent: René Beltjens, Member of the Supervisory Board of Alter Domus, shares three levers to keep Luxembourg among the world's most prosperous economies.

How can investment best support the economy?

More than subsidies for specific sectors, what matters is investing in first-class infrastructure. Mobility is a challenge today, and so is housing. The country also needs a high-performing education and healthcare system, a few well-chosen niches in research, and sufficient energy capacity, which is not the case today. Given Luxembourg's size, this will have to be done in close cooperation with our neighbours, without depending on them significantly. That last point calls for a new, non-dogmatic approach to nuclear energy.

It would be a mistake to focus on 'saving' jobs that are bound to disappear. That only delays the inevitable.

How do you build champions in the Luxembourg economy?

Given the country's small size and its international openness, I do not believe you can be a true champion in Luxembourg alone. Entrepreneurs must ask themselves early on, ideally from the design stage, whether their product or service has strong enough unique selling points to succeed abroad as well. At the same time, that small size is an asset: Luxembourg can serve as a small-scale test market before taking on larger ones.

Which levers will preserve Luxembourg's attractiveness?

The country's stability and confidence in its medium to long-term trajectory are key. In that context, keeping public spending under control and efficient seems to me the easiest lever, since it lies entirely in the hands of the government and parliament. It takes political courage and a great deal of communication. It is also essential to focus on attracting front-office roles rather than back or middle-office ones. The latter add less value, and how do you remain among the richest countries in the world without creating enough added value? They are also the roles most exposed to competition from lower-cost countries, to automation and to artificial intelligence. Their decline in Luxembourg is therefore inevitable. It would be a mistake to concentrate efforts on "saving" some of these jobs: that would only delay the inevitable and reduce the funds available for what can really make a difference, namely helping workers retrain and upskill on the one hand, and encouraging the arrival of tomorrow's jobs on the other. An appropriate legislative framework is another important lever. In regulated fields, and particularly in the financial sector given its importance for the country, we need an in-depth reflection on the objectives of these regulations and their real impact. One side effect of overregulation is to create a barrier to entry and require an ever larger minimum size, which reduces the number of players and ultimately raises the cost of the service for the very people it is meant to protect.